Video Review

Weapon Review

Is the Word of Crota better than Fatebringer? The Word will be better used in situations where you can take use of its unique perks, but Fatebringer overall is the ‘best’ choice.

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Recommended perks:

STEADYHAND IS
+6 Stability
+8 Reload

Hammer Forged
+40 Range
-10 Reload

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The Good

Like each of the Crota’s End primary weapons, Word of Crota features an elemental damage type. The Void damage will be great for weekly activities with Void Burn and enemies with Void shields, and is one of the only primary weapons that has this element besides Atheon’s Epilogue.

A full 12 round magazine can be emptied in about in 4.5 seconds, compared to the 6 seconds it takes to empty Fatebringer’s magazine. Of course it might take a little longer to empty the magazine depending on the rounds from Phantom Gift.

Phantom gift is the perk that’s unique to the Word of Crota. Phantom Gift is similar to Black Hammer‘s White Nail perk, but instead of getting a full magazine back, you’ll get just 1 additional round from landing 3 critical hits. If you never miss precision shots, you effectively have a 17 round magazine.

Obviously depending on what enemy or boss you’re fighting, Phantom Gift allows for much more quick damage. It is especially effective at taking down mobs with accuracy, but not armored enemies or enemies without a critical spot like Minotaur’s and Praetorians.

If you’re not in an area where you’ll really be able to take advantage of it, just use Explosive Rounds for the extra damage. Once the Phantom Gift perk is fixed, you won’t need to choose between it and Explosive Rounds.

Phantom gift is easy to proc due to the extremely high stability. Word of Crota is in the top tier for stability, only being beat by Hawkmoon and Red Hand IX.
In addition to the great base stability, Word of Crota also has Zen Moment which will increase the stability on each hit up to 66%. At medium range you can easily send shot after shot into a target without having to worry about recoil.

The reload speed is also really quick, and can be increased further with the Speed Reload perk. Its base speed is 2.70 seconds but that can be quickened to 2.40 seconds. The ADS speed is also incredibly quick at just .10 seconds.

Unique to the raid weapons is the Hive Disruptor perk which increases damage to Hive Majors. You’ll be able to do about 408 additional damage with each shot to Hive Majors, but there is a cooldown of 1 second in between shots.
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The Bad

First of all, the fact that Phantom Gift is bugged makes this weapon frustrating to use. Using Explosive Rounds or taking advantage of Hive Disruptor won’t allow you to get additional rounds from Phantom Gift.

The reason you’ll want to use this weapon is for the extra damage you get from Phantom Gift/Hive Disruptor/Explosive Rounds – it’s a shame they (currently) don’t work together.

The Impact of 68 is low, but this certainly isn’t bad by itself because it’s normal for its archetype. It will do slightly more damage than Fatebringer, but it’s negligible for anything besides a Hive Major.

What’s unfortunate about the low Impact is that the additional damage you’ll get with Hive Disruptor or Explosive Rounds will eliminate Phantom Gift.

Furthermore, low Impact hand cannons shouldn’t generally be used on bosses, but bosses are where Phantom Gift will be easiest to proc.

Word of Crota‘s range is average, certainly not the worst, but fortunately you can remedy this by getting the Hammer Forged perk.

In the Crucible, it’s really not worth using because of its perks. You can still take out a Guardian in a 3-4 shots and the stats aren’t bad at all, but this hand cannon just doesn’t stand out over anything else.

Finally, because of the aesthetics of the gun (protruding Hive-like bones on the sides), you may have to wait until the crosshair has returned to center before firing off an additional round.
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Cosmetics

The same design choices were used for this weapon as with the rest of the raid weapons, with bones growing out and green lights all over it. The main problem with this is that the bones that grow out of the side are rather large.

The profile of the weapon when aiming down its sights is rather large and it becomes noticeable when trying to take advantage of the high rate of fire, as the bones on the side get in the way of seeing your target.

You can get a feel for the weapon and know where the crosshairs actually are in the recoil, but it is still very inconvenient to have to slow down your shots to accommodate the cosmetics getting in the way of your fight.
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Conclusion

Is Word of Crota better than Fatebringer? For most circumstances, probably not. Fatebringer is the PvE king due to its versatility and crowd control capabilities, and Word of Crota only excels against Hive Majors, so it’s not going to be a replacement.

However, if you don’t have Fatebringer, this is an excellent PvE alternative and will be helpful in Hive encounters. Void weapons are few and far between, and Word of Crota is still among the best PvE hand cannons.

As far as PvP goes, unless you desperately need a high stability hand cannon, avoid using this one due to its lackluster perks.